Monday, 24 April 2017

Home of last resort? Fighting over land in Kibera’s Slum

Emma
Elfversson & Kristine Höglund

Kibera, one of Africa’s largest slum
settlements, is not a pleasant place to live. Like many informal settlements in
Kenya and elsewhere, it lacks access to basic services and infrastructure. Tiny,
dilapidated shacks crowd together amidst narrow dirt alleys that turn to mud
when rains come. Limited access to sanitation and garbage disposal result in an
unhealthy environment. Yet, the legal rights to Kibera are intensely contested,
both among the communities living there and on the national political agenda. In
particular, the Nubian community, Kibera’s original inhabitants and today a
shrinking minority within the slum, have for decades fought for the right to
the land. Why is Kibera so important? How has the Nubian community’s struggle affected
their relationship with other groups living in Kibera?

These questions led us to analyze the Nubian community’s pursuit
of an ‘ethnic homeland’ in Kibera, Nairobi. Our
analysis shows how the land question has over time become closely
intertwined with claims to identity and citizenship. In turn, this has made the
conflict more complex and difficult to manage. More
broadly, our research contributes to an understanding of how identity-based
groups compete for land and opportunities in urban slums, and how such
conflicts interact with urban governance and politics. The
developing world is rapidly urbanizing, and when this urbanization takes place
in countries where group identities are strongly politicized, these questions
become urgent and highly policy-relevant.

The Nubian case highlights how, in
countries such as Kenya, land is at the center of citizenship, belonging and
political rights. The Nubian community, and their settlement Kibera, originates
from Sudanese soldiers who came to Kenya in the service of the British during
colonialism. Following Kenya’s independence, the Nubians adopted a narrative of
being a distinct tribe with Kibera as their ethnic homeland. This made sense in
the context of a political system closely connected with ethnic identity, and
unlike other groups, the Nubians had no other place to call home within Kenya.
In the words of one of our interviewees, it is their “home of last resort.”

Figure 1. Kibera hosts the Nubians’ mainburial site that increases its symbolic importance and it is used to reinforce
the community’s claim to the land (Source: Emma Elfversson)

While the struggle for an ethnic homeland
made sense in the context of Kenyan national politics, it had negative
implications for the interactions with other communities living in Kibera. As
other communities living in Kibera increased in size, and the settlement became
an important electoral mobilizing ground, intergroup tensions grew and have
erupted into intense violence on numerous occasions. At the same time, the land
has become increasingly valuable, due to its location
close to Nairobi’s center. However, for the Nubians, the value of the land is
also symbolic for cultural and political reasons: the aspiration to a communal land title is intertwined
with claims to be recognized as a community with a legitimate right to belong
in Kenya.

Our
analysis also shows how institutional uncertainty – the existence of numerous and
overlapping formal and informal institutions to which people turn to manage
conflicts and pursue claims – has complicated the conflict over time. Promises
made by certain agencies may lack legal authority or contravene interests closer
to the center of power. More profoundly, given the Nubian community’s minority
status, their political weight is small. One interviewee referred to the
Nubians as a ‘step child’ of political patrons, who will prioritize the
interests of their own community first.

In
summary, the Nubian case illustrates how urban land conflicts can become very
salient and complex. Urban planners must consider the challenges of political,
symbolic and identity-related aspects of land in order to achieve sustainable
urban development and reduce the risks for conflict.

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Urban Studies is the leading interdisciplinary journal for critical urban research and issues. Since it was first published in 1964 to provide an international forum for research into the fields of urban and regional studies, the journal has expanded to encompass the increasing range of disciplines and approaches that have been brought to bear on urban and regional issues